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Courts Catalyzing Change: Tools to Reduce Disproportionality and Disparate Treatment of Children and Families of Color
by Tracy Cooper and Paula Campbell

The Courts Catalyzing Change: Achieving Equity and Fairness in Foster Care Initiative (CCC), funded by Casey Family Programs and supported by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), brings together judicial officers and other systems experts to set a national agenda for court-based training, research, and reform initiatives to reduce the disproportionate representation of children of color in dependency court systems.

A major goal of the CCC Initiative is to provide concrete guidance, strategies, and tools to assist dependency court systems in taking specific actions to reduce racial disproportionality and disparate treatment of children and families of color. One tool specifically designed to transform judicial practice on the bench in child abuse and neglect cases, is a preliminary protective benchcard designed with a racial equity lens. The benchcard is the first step in enhancing the NCJFCJ’s RESOURCE GUIDELINES and is designed to assist judges to conduct the preliminary protective hearing with a clear and deep consideration of culture, reasonable efforts, and the minimally adequate standard of care. The Portland, Oregon, Los Angeles, California, and Omaha, Nebraska Model Courts are currently serving as pilot research test sites for implementation of the benchcard.

Evaluations conducted from the implementation of the benchcard are important in determining its effectiveness for reducing disproportionality and disparate treatment within the juvenile dependency court system. Findings and lessons learned from the pilot testing and evaluation process will be published in a technical assistance brief to provide guidance to other jurisdictions as they proceed with the implementation process. Following the pilot, the benchcard will be released to all Model Court jurisdictions upon participation in critical training regarding implicit bias and institutional and structural racism.

Additionally, the Courts Catalyzing Change National Agenda Implementation Guide was recently released at the NCJFCJ Model Courts All-Sites Conference in October. The Implementation Guide outlines five preliminary steps to aid courts in implementing the National Agenda in their jurisdictions, and offers current implementation highlights from Model Court jurisdictions. The Implementation Guide, as well as the Courts Catalyzing Change National Agenda and other resources, can be downloaded from the CCC website.

Tracy Cooper and Paula Campbell are Information Specialists with the Permanency Planning for Children Department of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. The authors thank Candice Maze, J.D. of Maze Consulting, Inc. for her contributions.

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